Twitter's Early Stocking Stuffer: $200M

Twitter is celebrating Christmas early this year. The wildly popular online communications service raised another $200 million from investors. As first reported by the technology blog, All Things Digital, Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is leading the investment at a $3.7 billion valuation. What’s more, Twitter added two new members to its board.

“As part of a significant new round of funding with investor Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and existing investors, we've added two new members to Twitter's board of directors. Please join us in welcoming Mike McCue and David Rosenblatt. The experience these new directors bring to Twitter, along with this renewed investment, will help us continue to grow as a company and business,” stated Twitter’s blog, referring to the influx of money as a “stocking stuffer.”

In the past 12 months, Twitter users sent an eye-popping 25 billion Tweets and added more than 100 million new registered accounts. In that time, the company’s workforce has grown from 130 people to more than 350 today.

Twitter’s new funding round casts a positive light on Dick Costolo, the company’s newly appointed CEO. In October, Costolo succeeded Twitter co-founder, Evan Williams, who abandoned his post after a two-year stint. Of the changing of the guard, Williams wrote in a post on Twitter’s blog, “The challenges of growing an organization so quickly are numerous. Growing big is not success, in itself. Success to us means meeting our potential as a profitable company that can retain its culture and user focus while having a positive impact on the world. This is no small task. I frequently reflect on the type of focus that is required from everyone at Twitter to get us there…This is why I have decided to ask our COO, Dick Costolo, to become Twitter’s CEO. Starting today, I’ll be completely focused on product strategy.”

Since its 2007 launch, Twitter raised about $360 million.

Recently, MediaFriends revealed HeyWire, a real-time social messaging hub, which combines text, chat and IM across multiple screens, allowing the world's first mobile service to enable its users to access Twitter via SMS from anywhere in the world.